The film Moonlight by director Barry Jerkins shows the challenges that Chiron encounters through different stages of development. Act 1 of Moonlight highlights the life of Chiron as a schoolboy, Act 2 his teenage years, and the last Act, his life as an adult. The movie’s genre is a drama with a focus on the themes of minority membership, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ), black ethnicity, and drug abuse (Kannan et al. 287). In the movie, Chiron struggles with his masculinity which greatly affects his socialization. His mother is a drug addict who is unable to establish a relationship with his son. Chiron is always bullied at school, and he struggles to express his sexual feelings throughout the film. Although Chiron is responsible and smart, his failure to become an alpha male (as influenced by his socialization and abject poverty) makes him retrieve to solitude.
Act one starts with Chiron, nicknamed “Little,” hiding from bullies in a crack house. He meets Juan, who accommodates him for the night leading to a solid relationship. After learning basic life skills from Juan and his girlfriend Teresa, the relationship is short-lived after he finds out that he is the one who introduced his mother to Cocaine. In Act 2, Juan dies, and teenage Chiron spends more time with Teresa (Moonlight). His mother sinks deeper into drug addiction, causing a significant strain in their relationship. Chiron has his first sexual experience with his childhood friend, Kevin, who kisses and masturbates him. Later in Act 3, Chiron goes by the nickname Black and, surprisingly, is now dealing drugs (Moonlight). He manages to reconcile with his mother but continues to struggle with his sexual identity. The last scene is Chiron’s confession to Kevin after dinner, saying that he has never been intimate with anyone since the last encounter they had at the beach.
The movie attracts a wide variety of audiences but would resonate more with the experiences of African Americans in the ghettos. For instance, Jerkins, the director, said that he identified most with the character of Chiron and his struggle to find a place in a society that only gives a chance to men with the alpha personality (Pulver). The purpose of the movie is to sensitize people about the struggles that people in minority communities face. It affirms the gay men that it is okay to be different in a world with expectations for people to portray masculinity in a way acceptable in the community. Thus, the director’s argument is that society still trivializes African American men with queer feelings.
Jenkins is a credible director of the film, given that he went through similar challenges as the character of Chiron. Specifically, he explains how his mother was addicted to drugs and unable to commit to her mothering responsibilities. At one point, Jerkins had to live under the care of his foster grandmother in a two-bed apartment that hosted eight people (Pulver). Jerkins’s experiences with poverty, racial discrimination, and inferiority make him suitable for directing a movie with similar themes. Moreover, Jerkins has been to film school and has experience working as a director (Pulver). Therefore, Jerkins has the professional and moral standing to write about black masculinity and its struggles.
Moonlight is fiction but based on a true story that reflects the lifestyle of people in a black ghetto community. The setting of the movie is in the ghettos of Miami, Florida, and at the Liberty housing project, which has a large group of African Americans. All the casts are black, which helps to give focus to the minority struggles even in the absence of the whites. The localities of the shooting serve both as evidence and struggle. The choice of the movie’s romantic setting at the beach is atypical of popular love scenes in real-life (Kannan et al. 293). The film considers people’s daily experiences, making it relatable to the audience. The transition of the protagonist, from Little to Chiron and later Black, is remarkable. However, despite his strides, his feelings of inadequacy remain constant.
Scholars and other people have given different opinions regarding the development of sexual minorities as a construct of socialization. Specifically, social, economic status, and relationships with the parent of the opposite gender are thought to be the primary cause of minority sexual orientation. For instance, the term “makeshift masculinity” has been coined to represent how the abject poverty experienced by the protagonist shaped his docile personality (Johnson 70). Even when he becomes a perpetrator of violence, he still feels inferior.
The protagonist’s relationship with his parents contributes to his life choices and sexual development. Chiron’s mother was addicted to drugs and never took care of him while growing hence a prototype of a disguised feminine figure who negatively affected Chiron’s attraction to people of the opposite sex. Notably, Chiron sees Juan as a father he never had and Teresa as the mother he wishes for since Paula is incapable of showing care (Kannan et al. 295). Juan disappoints him for having introduced his mother to drugs but is the first man to embrace him and his sexual feelings. Hence, upbringing and socialization are portrayed as significant factors in Chiron’s failure to develop hyper-masculinity.
Jerkins’s movie has a good storyline and mirrors the struggles that the people from minority groups, specifically the black gay men, face in a heterosexual and patriarchal society. The film won the best picture award in 2016, and its cast received prices for their performance (Kannan et al. 287). The film has received significant attention from scholars and the public alike. However, its failure to include white actors among the cast may have reduced its audience. In particular, Moonlight is a modern film with an all-black cast, which seems to suggest that it is a film for African Americans. It depicts some form of rebellion from the classic movies, which had at least 75% of whites (Kannan et al. 290). Such a development is advantageous as it eliminates the stereotypical tendencies of contrasting minority families with those of Caucasians. However, it is a drawback because it is focused on only one community making it unattractive to the non-black audience.
Conclusively, Chiron is influenced by his surroundings in developing a solitary personality and inability to fully express his feelings. In a society that celebrates hyper-masculinity, the protagonist finds it hard to find his voice. Nobody appears to understand or show attention to his plight. He navigates through life and finds himself doing the same things that he once detested. Chiron may be a fictional figure, but many individuals are experiencing similar challenges. The film’s storyline, visuals, and themes are perfectly done to attract many people. Thus, Moonlight is an excellent film, highlighting such topics as cultural transformation, appreciation of cultures, personal relationships and different sexualities.
Works Cited
Johnson, Patrick. “In the Quare Light of the Moon: Poverty, Sexuality and Makeshift Masculinity in Moonlight.” The Western Journal of Black Studies, vol. 43, no. 3, 2019, pp. 70-79.
Kannan, Menaka, et al. “Watching Moonlight in the Twilight of Obama.” Humanity & Society, vol. 41, no. 3, 2017, pp. 287-298.
Moonlight. directed by Barry Jenkins, Plan B Entertainment Inc.
Pulver, Andrew. “Moonlight Becomes Him: Barry Jenkins’s Journey from a Miami Housing Project to the Oscars.” The Guardian, 2018.